Wednesday, Aug 20, 2003
Wednesday, Aug 20, 2003 |
| Front Page | ||||
|
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary | Front Page
By Harish Khare
The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, waves to the media on his arrival at the Parliament House in New Delhi on Tuesday. — PTI
The vote came at the end of a two-day marathon debate when the Opposition insisted on a formal division. In fact, by the time the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, got up to speak, at 11 p.m., the Lok Sabha members had visibly lost the appetite for lengthy speeches. With the desire to get over with it all too evident and the outcome of the vote also known, the Prime Minister put in a rather indifferent performance. Except for a stout defence of his decision to re-induct George Fernandes in the Union Cabinet, Mr. Vajpayee did not come anywhere near producing the kind of sparkling oratory for which he is so well known. Instead of replying to specific charges of indictment made by the Leader of the Opposition, Sonia Gandhi, while introducing the motion, Mr. Vajpayee chose to express himself to be pained at the very idea of the Opposition "charging'' his Government when so much had been accomplished in the last five years. The Prime Minister disputed the Opposition's contention that his Government had lost the mandate of the people, and challenged the Congress for an electoral bout in the Assembly elections later this year. But the Prime Minister was at his animated best in defence of his Defence Minister. He complimented Mr. Fernandes for stoically facing the Opposition's boycott, declared him to have been the best Defence Minister, and argued that it was he, as Prime Minister, who inducted Mr. Fernandes back in the Cabinet. Addressing himself to the Opposition's charge that Mr. Fernandes was re-inducted before he got exonerated by the Tehelka Commission of Inquiry, the Prime Minister pointed out that there were no charges against Defence Minister, that he was not an accused and that the Inquiry Commission had not sought any explanation from him. The Prime Minister disapproved of the Opposition's charge that his Government had undermined India's foreign policy and had mortgaged our autonomy in external affairs; he challenged the Opposition to tell to whom and for how much our autonomy had been mortgaged. He maintained that unlike previous Prime Ministers, he did not allow himself to be browbeaten by the international community when it came to Pokharan II. Mr. Vajpayee was restrained in taking on Ms. Gandhi. He began by mocking her speech and wondered whether a thesaurus had been overused but told the house that a discourse of abuse was no solution to the country's problems. The only personal shot he took at Ms. Gandhi was to tell her that the days of one party overlordship were over and the country was no longer prepared to pay allegiance to one leader. For most of the time, Mr. Vajpayee was caught between outright partisanship and responsible statesmanship. He was interrupted a number of times and each interruption appeared to provoke a combative streak in him; but most of the time, the Prime Minister contented himself with a "we-know-the-outcome'' perfunctory attitude. On her part, the Leader of the Opposition, in her concluding remarks, was equally uninspired. The only note of aggression in her 15-minute reply was her challenge to the Deputy Prime Minister to substantiate his charge that she had directed the Congress State Governments not to use POTA. The NDA back-benches were in no mood to allow Ms. Gandhi an uninterrupted reply. Speaking in Hindi, she insisted that whatever accomplishments the Vajpayee Government was claiming credit for were a continuation of the Congress legacy. When the bitter and acrimonious debate came to an end with the vote, there were no gestures of parliamentary camaraderie. The two sides turned their back on each other.
Printer friendly
page
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
|
|
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | The Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | Home |
Copyright © 2003, The
Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu
|
